Watchmen: A review

Well Andrew and I saw Watchmen and I thought I would share my thoughts with you.

First of all it confirms a long-held belief of mine that not everything has to be made into a film. But if you are going to make a well-beloved classic into a film, the film should do more than the original does. Watchmen doesn't. But I am really glad we saw it. It is one of the most visually extraordinary films I have seen. It is also, unfortunately, one of the most violent. It's actually two separate films (as is the book, two separate books). One, which is a parody of superheroes, which was perhaps more relevant in 1985 than it is today, the other is a philosophical dissertation on nuclear war. The first is what makes Watchmen fun; the second is sophomoric.

The Watchmen are a group of mostly-retired masked crime fighters. In Nixon's fifth term masks were made illegal. The story is set off by the murder of one of the group - Edward Blake "The Comedian" (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) - the murder is discovered by the other psychotic of the group - "Rorschach"/Walter Kovacks (Jackie Earl Haley). Rorschach's mask is an ever-changing ink blot. (I think his mask is my favorite part of the movie.) Rorschach visits each of the others to tell them about The Comedian's murder and to warn them about a list which may be targeting them. As Rorschach travels from one to the other, we meet the other Watchmen: "Ozymandias," the only one who's identity has been made publicly known as Adrien Veidt (Matthew Goode), known as the smartest man in the world (also one of the richest) and "Dr. Manhattan"/Jon Osterman (Billy Crudup) - the only genuine super-hero in the lot due to a nuclear accident which has left him with superpowers. When Rorschach visits Manhattan second generation Watchmen, Laurie Jupiter/Silk Spectre II (Malin Ackerman) is with him. Her mother Silk Spectre/Sally Jupiter (Carla Gugino) was part of the original group of masked crime fighters. And lastly, the other second-generation masked crime fighter Nite Owl II/Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson).

So the mystery of Watchmen is who killed The Comedian and why. If you've read the book, you already know the answer. If you haven't, you will find out what is really going on. For a while Rorschack focuses on a suspect, Moloch (Matt Frewer), one of their old enemies. But it's all more complicated than that. A secondary story revolves around the love triangle: Dr. Manhattan, Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II and who ends up with who. When Manhattan and Silk Spectre II break up, he goes off to Mars to find himself.

Remember, Watchmen is at its heart a send-up of superheroes. For example, when Laurie and Dan are together and they try to have sex, Dan (Nite Owl II) can't get it up - but wait. They put on their superhero costumes, get in his plane and save a bunch of people from a fire. When they get back to his house, they have hot sex to the tune of Leonard Cohen's great "Hallelujah." Amazing what you can do with the right costume. And don't forget perhaps the most commented on part of the film, the big blue guy's (Manhattan) nudity and ample endowment.

But all that aside, the main message of Watchmen is that we can control nuclear devastation by finding an enemy that both the U.S and the Soviet Union (remember it's the 80s) can join together and target instead of each other. The death of thousands of New Yorkers is an acceptable loss. Sounds like the justification for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and it's not acceptable.

Well what to say: one of the most talked about films of the year isn't doing very well at the box office. Last week it sold $85.9 million. This week it was down to $18 million. That's quite a drop.